The owl came to me the other night. And I don’t mean in a dream. Literally. Woken from restless sleep by the sound of talons skittering across wooden floorboards, the owl landed unceremoniously on the bathroom floor after flying through the open window. It was so hot, the air so close, that I had left the window wide open for ventilation.

Instinct told me it was one of the barn owls. We have a family living in the unused chimney in the kitchen. Owl mess drops down into the fireplace every afternoon. They are regular in their habits, the owls. Evidence of their nightly feeding appears on the kitchen floor each morning in the form of dead mice and shrews, the chicks obviously still clumsy in their youth.

So two nights ago we jumped out of bed, stumbled to our feet, and in the pitch dark…